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Microsoft Quickly Revises "Sexting" Ad For Kin Phone
theodp writes "Microsoft's Kin mobile phone project came under fire as Consumer Reports and others pointed out that a promotional video looked like an inappropriate endorsement of 'sexting,' prompting a quick edit and an apologetic tweet. 'The video,' observed Consumer Reports, 'includes a downright creepy sequence [beginning around 0:33] in which a young man is shown putting a Kin under his shirt and apparently snapping a picture of one of his naked breasts. The breast is then shown on the phone's screen, just before the guy apparently sends it to someone. Next we see the face of a young woman, seemingly the recipient, with an amused expression...'"
I am sure that it is part of the advertising plan to be "forced" to withdraw sensational ads as a way of gaining extra publicity. I have never seen this ad, and only once heard about the Kin phone, but now I have been exposed (oh dear) to the campaign as a news item.
I am sure that if nobody complained then the ad executives would plant their own complaints in the news just to get people to talk about it. How many times do you hear news reports about people being outraged without ever saying who those people are. I imagine that it is rare to need to resort to doing their own complaints, because the people who get offended by this are so predictably vocal. And who cares if you piss them off, because the target market are young people who think sexting is OK and who would be quite happy to rebel against the prudes.
That rule is for Jews only, like the rule against eating milk with meat. A gentile can eat a cheeseburger, or wear cotton-poly blends, without being unrighteous.
The milk rule has to do with a verse in Exodus listing some religious rituals Jews were commanded to perform and others that that were forbidden. One of the forbidden rituals was boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk. Aside from considerations of cruelty, 20th Century archeology discovered that the Ugarites, one of Israel's neighbors, practiced precisely such a ritual.
The prohibition against seething a kid in its mother's milk prevented the incorporation of this foreign ritual into Jewish life. Later, when that law was no longer needed, it was reinterpreted to forbid mixing milk and meat at all, even though each was allowed separately. It was a commandment, and since there is no mechanism for repealing a divine law, the Jews had to find a way to obey it. The prohibition on mixed fibers is probably of the same nature. It probably addressed a specific threat of cultural assimilation or religious syncretism.
The function of many of the commandments of Jewish religious law seems to be maintaining a distinct Jewish cultural identity. If the Pentateuch were still open to additions today, they'd probably add a prohibition against Jews setting up live trees in their house. To us, the intent would be clear: Jews should not let Christmas holiday practices creep into their culture. Two or three thousand years from now, long after people stop setting up Christmas trees, that prohibition might seem weird and arbitrary.
In an ironic way, it is the arbitrariness of such a law that justifies it. The entire point is to prevent the Jewish people from assimilating into the cultures that surround them. Laws against killing or bearing false witness are sensible laws for anyone, but were all Jews to follow only such laws, it would be doubtful that Jews would maintain their distinct cultural identity for thousands of years more.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Either automatic weapons in the hands of citizenry are okay or they are not. Which one is it?
I have nothing but contempt for people who don't have the guts to ban something outright but try to make it de facto banned by forcing people to jump through hoops.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.